Weightless

(”Weightless” was accepted into a juried show at Galatea Gallery for August 2010. Juror, Dina Deitsch, assistant curator at the DeCordova museum. Here’s the artist statement for the piece)

A few months ago, my cat caught a chipmunk, and left it in the yard for me. The chipmunk was graceful, beautiful, with the grass folded like renaissance angel’s garb all about him.  The image raises themes of loss, the pervasiveness of suffering, the fragility of life and finality of death. And it attempts an exploration of the cognitive dissonance –­ that uneasy collision between reality and coping mechanism – which we often feel when confronted by suffering and death.

The chipmunk also conjures for me the Flemish 17th century tradition of still life painting: fruit on the verge of spoiling, lush flowers slipping past their prime, and dead game animals, all symbolizing the transiency of life.

As I look at this little tableau, I’m acutely aware of cognitive dissonance – a sense of vertigo almost – as I simultaneously resist and accept this little bit of reality. I’m a confirmed non-deist, and understand beyond doubt that the inhabiting life of this creature no longer exists. I know it’s an inanimate shell, yet the body seems to radiate so much of what was. As though the animal’s thoughts still cling to it. As though the whole life it lived still clings to it. It’s a jewel-like empty case that I cannot bring myself to roll up in newsprint and toss away. I know he doesn’t need the comfort, but I wrap him in a mat of moss before I bury him. I know he won’t get hungry, but I roll a few acorns into the hole before I fill it back up.

Begining an “Atheism Portfolio”

I’m beginning to wrestle with finding ways to express an atheist point of view in my work. At least now and then.

I’m a life-long atheist — since childhood, and not because of any trauma, and not because I grew up in an atheist community. Atheism just makes sense to me. I’m not without religion:  it’s my cultural background, my community, and in part my ethical framework.

Most of my life, I’ve  kept my atheism to myself. But lately, it seems prudent to put it out there — to make it part of a world where atheism is a reasonable and acceptable choice rather than something to be hidden. In the past, I’ve said I would never want to convince anyone to join me in my atheism. I live on a cold and windy promontory, facing the void each day. Why ask anyone to give up the warmth  and comfort of a world where God and heaven   provide a final justice, right all wrongs and rescind oblivion?

But more and more, I feel that humanity will be better off without God. Time is short. We’ll solve more of the problems that face us, if we work from a platform of rational understanding. Less rationalization of suffering, more concentration on preventing it.